Book Talk: The Hate U Give

"'I'm sick of this! Just like y'all think all of us are bad because of some people, we think the same about y'all. Until you give us a reason to think otherwise, we'll keep protesting.'"

This isn't the typical genre of book I would go for. I could tell as soon as I started reading the first page. But when this book came out, it had everyone talking. Everyone was buying this book and I decided to put it on my reading wish list. This book has good reason to have everyone talking. This book is a book everyone should read.

Angie Thomas couldn't have released this book at a more fitting time. This book is real. It's honest. It may even make you uncomfortable, but it's a book that sparks a conversation.

Starr is a 16-year-old girl that I can completely relate to when it came to my identity. She is black, but goes to a predominately white school, and is seen as stuck up and bougie to those the same color as her, and as an interesting, "cool" person to the opposite race. She is constantly battling which side of herself she should show and when. So many teens deal with this and it's quite heartbreaking honestly. Everyone should be who they really are despite the color of their skin and who they're around.

But this book isn't just about Starr's identity. It's about her life, her "ghetto" neighborhood, the gangs, the violence, the drugs, her interracial relationship, racism, police brutality, and finding her voice all in the mix of it. Sounds familiar?

She's 16 and has seen not only one, but two of her friends killed right in front of her. One of them was black and shot all because of stereotypes. I know that sounds familiar.

This is a hard book to get through, but an easy book to keep reading because how really real it feels. But it's part of the conversation, a conversation that things need to change, and it starts with one decision to use our voice.